Samsung Health is shutting down its “Together” feature for users under 18 outside South Korea, once the app updates to version 7.1. The company confirmed the change in an in-app notice dated September 7, and it will hit teenagers and children using Samsung Health in markets including the US and India.
What Samsung Told Users
The notice, titled “[Notice] Changes to the Together Service Policy for Users Under 18 Years of Age,” was reproduced in full by SamMobile. Samsung wrote:
“Users under the age of 18 in countries other than Korea will no longer be able to use the Together service.”
The restriction applies specifically to “accounts of users under the age of 18 whose service country is set to a country other than Korea,” and takes effect “upon the Samsung Health v7.1 update.” Samsung framed the change as a compliance move:
“Due to this policy change, use of the Together service may be restricted for the affected users in order to comply with local laws and regulations.”
Affected users are pointed to Samsung Health Settings > Help > Contact us for questions. No date has been given for when v7.1 will actually roll out worldwide.
What Together Does, and Who Loses It
Together is Samsung Health’s social layer: it lets friends and family compete on step counts, join fitness challenges, and share activity progress with each other. Cutting it off for under-18 users outside Korea means younger users in most of the world lose the social and competitive side of the app, while still keeping the core health-tracking features.
Sammy Fans, which independently confirmed the same notice, was explicit about who is caught by it: “Users under 18 in countries such as India and other regions may lose access to the Together service after the change takes effect.” Anyone who doesn’t meet both conditions, under 18 and outside Korea, keeps the feature as-is.
Why Now
Samsung’s stated reason is legal compliance, and the timing lines up with a broader regulatory push worldwide. Several countries have tightened rules around minors’ data privacy and social features in apps over the past two years, and platforms with any community or sharing component for under-18 accounts have increasingly had to restrict or redesign those features rather than risk running afoul of child-safety laws.
Samsung has not said which specific law or laws prompted this change, and it’s worth being precise about what Samsung has and hasn’t said: the company’s notice only says the feature is being restricted, not what happens to any data already generated through it. Anyone concerned about their activity history should check Samsung Health’s own data settings directly rather than assume.
This also isn’t an isolated move. SamMobile notes Samsung has been trimming other features recently too, including ending OneDrive integration with Samsung Gallery and confirming the closure of select camera-related tools. Cutting Together for minors fits that same pattern of Samsung narrowing what its apps do, even if the justification here is regulatory rather than cost-driven.
What to Do If You’re Affected
- Check your account’s service country: Together only survives if your Samsung account’s service country is set to Korea; every other market loses it for under-18 accounts.
- Update to Samsung Health v7.1 to see whether the restriction has reached your device — no fixed rollout date exists yet.
- Use Samsung Health Settings > Help > Contact us for account-specific questions, per Samsung’s own notice.
Sources: SamMobile, Sammy Fans
